{"id":21865,"date":"2018-08-23T16:16:27","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T20:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=21865"},"modified":"2019-07-18T14:09:50","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T18:09:50","slug":"brave-potential-grad-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/?p=21865","title":{"rendered":"brave potential grad student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Aska!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m currently getting a computer science bachelors with a math minor from another Canadian university, and I want to apply for a masters in mathematics at uoft. I think my GPA is high enough but I&#8217;m not sure I have an &#8220;appropriate bachelors degree&#8221; and haven&#8217;t made connections with any of my math professors for letters of reference.<\/p>\n<p>So I changed my plan to:<br \/>\n&#8211; apply as a non-degree student<br \/>\n&#8211; take a year to do a bunch of math courses<br \/>\n&#8211; get letters of reference from them<br \/>\n&#8211; apply for masters<br \/>\n&#8211; ???<br \/>\n&#8211; profit<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also emailed the graduate unit to ask for application requirements, so I thought as long as I could get the specifics cleared, ie. what courses do I need to take to prove I can do a masters in math as a computer science undergrad? things would go smoothly. However, I was looking at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sgs.utoronto.ca\/prospectivestudents\/Pages\/Non-Degree-Special-Students.aspx\">this<\/a> and it says that full-time non-degree special students need at least two letters of reference. Are non-degree special students the same thing as non-degree students? Does this mean I need reference letters to apply as a non-degree student? Am I basically screwed because I need letters of reference to get my letters of reference? If yes, do you know of any alternatives? I don&#8217;t want to do another bachelors but I&#8217;m not really sure how I can get in otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>hi!<\/p>\n<p>when i got your email i was immediately delighted. i. LOVE. plans! alrighty, lets get down to business (to get you into a math masters at u of t) (which sounds absolutely terrifying you brave brave soul math sucks)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media2.giphy.com\/media\/l41lPGJNUDxs4Y1uo\/giphy.gif\" alt=\"shirtless disney GIF\" width=\"263\" height=\"153\" \/><\/p>\n<p>according to the math department&#8217;s graduate program&#8217;s minimum admission requirements (which i think you&#8217;ve already taken a look at, but i&#8217;m just gonna regurgitate some info for you here), applicants must hold an &#8220;appropriate bachelor&#8217;s degree&#8221; with a final year average of at least a B-average, at least three reference letters, a letter of intent, and a CV.<\/p>\n<p>as you mentioned, you aren&#8217;t sure if you have an &#8220;appropriate bachelor&#8217;s degree&#8221; nor do you think you have anyone who you could put down as a reference. in that case, applying to u of t as a non-degree student first in order to get some math credits under your belt\/ meeting some profs for reference letters may be a good idea. the link that you had sent me is actually the info for applying as a non degree GRADUATE student, but if you wanted to just take some math courses in order to get into a masters program, you&#8217;d actually want to apply as a non-degree undergrad. you can check <a href=\"http:\/\/www.future.utoronto.ca\/apply\/applying\">this link<\/a> out for the application process, just scroll down to &#8220;non-degree applicants.&#8221; totally understand the confusion though, since you ultimately wanna be a grad student here.<\/p>\n<p>i also took a closer look at the master&#8217;s admission requirements. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.toronto.edu\/graduate\/admissions\/Suggested%20Prerequisites.pdf\">they list some informal &#8220;suggested prerequisites&#8221; in this pdf<\/a>. while they do list u of t courses, they also say that &#8220;there is no fixed or rigid list of prerequisites&#8221; and they describe concepts and topics that you should be familiar with, rather than strict course equivalents. take a look through their suggested prereqs and see how many of the topics\/ concepts that you have covered with your math minor. maybe you already have all the requirements fulfilled. it would probably be a good idea to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.math.toronto.edu\/cms\/people\/staff\/\">in contact with the math department<\/a> directly for more information.<\/p>\n<p>so basically, tldr; you should look into applying as a non-degree undergrad student and look into the informal prereqs the math department has. then, decide your next move, whether that be coming as a non-degree student or applying for the grad program directly. it&#8217;s up to you!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media2.giphy.com\/media\/3o7TKr1ZOGWM32HvWg\/giphy.gif\" alt=\"point pointing GIF by funk\" width=\"302\" height=\"170\" \/><\/p>\n<p>i hope this helps!<\/p>\n<p>xoxo,<\/p>\n<p>aska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Aska! I&#8217;m currently getting a computer science bachelors with a math minor from another Canadian university, and I want to apply for a masters in mathematics at uoft. I think my GPA is high enough but I&#8217;m not sure I have an &#8220;appropriate bachelors degree&#8221; and haven&#8217;t made connections with any of my math professors for letters of reference. So I changed my plan to: &#8211; apply as a non-degree student &#8211; take a year to do a bunch of math courses &#8211; get letters of reference from them &#8211; apply for masters &#8211; ??? &#8211; profit I&#8217;ve also emailed the graduate unit to ask for application requirements, so I thought as long as I could get the specifics cleared, ie. what courses do I need to take to prove I can do a masters in math as a computer science undergrad? things would go smoothly. However, I was looking at this and it says that full-time non-degree special students need at least two letters of reference. Are non-degree special students the same thing as non-degree students? Does this mean I need reference letters to apply as a non-degree student? Am I basically screwed because I need letters of reference to get my letters of reference? If yes, do you know of any alternatives? I don&#8217;t want to do another bachelors but I&#8217;m not really sure how I can get in otherwise. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 hi! when i got your email i was immediately delighted. i. LOVE. plans! alrighty, lets get down to business (to get you into a math masters at u of t) (which sounds absolutely terrifying you brave brave soul math sucks) according to the math department&#8217;s graduate program&#8217;s minimum admission requirements (which i think you&#8217;ve already taken a look at, but i&#8217;m just gonna regurgitate some info for you here), applicants must hold an &#8220;appropriate bachelor&#8217;s degree&#8221; with a final year average of at least a B-average, at least three reference letters, a letter of intent, and a CV. as you mentioned, you aren&#8217;t sure if you have an &#8220;appropriate bachelor&#8217;s degree&#8221; nor do you think you have anyone who you could put down as a reference. in that case, applying to u of t as a non-degree student first in order to get some math credits under your belt\/ meeting some profs for reference letters may be a good idea. the link that you had sent me is actually the info for applying as a non degree GRADUATE student, but if you wanted to just take some math courses in order to get into a masters program, you&#8217;d actually want to apply as a non-degree undergrad. you can check this link out for the application process, just scroll down to &#8220;non-degree applicants.&#8221; totally understand the confusion though, since you ultimately wanna be a grad student here. i also took a closer look at the master&#8217;s admission requirements. they list some informal &#8220;suggested prerequisites&#8221; in this pdf. while they do list u of t courses, they also say that &#8220;there is no fixed or rigid list of prerequisites&#8221; and they describe concepts and topics that you should be familiar with, rather than strict course equivalents. take a look through their suggested prereqs and see how many of the topics\/ concepts that you have covered with your math minor. maybe you already have all the requirements fulfilled. it would probably be a good idea to get in contact with the math department directly for more information. so basically, tldr; you should look into applying as a non-degree undergrad student and look into the informal prereqs the math department has. then, decide your next move, whether that be coming as a non-degree student or applying for the grad program directly. it&#8217;s up to you! i hope this helps! xoxo, aska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,45,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grad-school","category-math","category-non-degree"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askastudent.utoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}